ANTIGONISH: In line with this year’s Antigonight: Art After Dark theme of “rurality”, a provincial organization presented an art installation highlighting the stories of abuse and unfair treatment migrant farm workers are experiencing in Nova Scotia.
The installation consisting of large portraits of migrant community members were put on display by No One Is Illegal – Halifax (NOII-HFX) on Sept. 17 in the Minister of Immigration Sean Fraser’s riding, as thousands rallied throughout the country for migrant rights.
Stacey Gomez, the manager for NOII-HFX’s migrant workers program, indicated the portraits seek to capture the agency, dignity and joy of migrant farm and fish plant workers, asylum-seekers, migrant students and undocumented people, who are part of rural towns and villages throughout Nova Scotia.
“Due to precarious or temporary immigration status, migrant community members do not have access to the same rights and essential services such as healthcare as Nova Scotians do,” Gomez said. “And may be separated from (their) family.”
The poor treatment of migrant farm workers in Canada is currently dominating the headlines in St. Lucia, which sent its first cohort of women to participate in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program in April.
The women were sent to work at a strawberry farm in Nova Scotia, Latoya Ben, one of the women, recently spoke out against alleged verbal and physical abuse on the farm.
“The treatment was very disrespectful and very bad. We were working on our knees 24-7. The owner of the farm kicked one of the Saint Lucian ladies and called us hungry dogs,” Ben told DBS Television, a family owned television station located in Castries, St. Lucia.
Other migrant farm workers in Nova Scotia are also coming forward to share their stories of workplace abuse.
“They don’t treat us the same way as they would treat a Canadian. These guys are getting away with a lot of stuff and no one is disciplining them,” Paul, a Jamaican farm worker who has over 10 years of experience at an apple farm in Nova Scotia said in a release. “It is a race for our life…This is the 21st century. Slavery was abolished a long time ago, but we still face this kind of abuse? We need somebody to come up front and help (us), because we are human beings. We have kids, we have family.”
He recounts poor conditions on the farm where he worked, including overcrowded housing, pressure to work without a day of rest, threats to send workers back to Jamaica, verbal abuse, and late pay.
“Unfortunately, these are not isolated incidents. We regularly receive reports of abuse on farms across the province and we support migrant workers to know what actions they can take, and to take them,” Gomez said. “We need urgent provincial and federal action to stop the abuse and unfair treatment faced by migrant workers in Nova Scotia and throughout Canada.”
Sofia Alarcon was the primary artist who produced the initial illustrations and the painting was undertaken by a group of over 40 volunteers.
As a member of the Migrant Rights Network, Canada’s largest migrant-led coalition, NOII-HFX’s installation was one of the events taking place across the country calling for full and permanent immigration status for all migrants, in the lead up to Parliament’s return.
“Off-the-record sources have confirmed that Canada is developing a regularization program but no timelines have been announced or guarantees provided that this program will be inclusive,” Gomez said. “Regularization is a historic opportunity for Prime Minister Trudeau to correct unfairness in the immigration system and change the lives of half a million undocumented people which will ensure increased healthcare, climate and global justice and improve working conditions.”
According to NOII-HFX, over 480 civil society organizations have already endorsed this call for immigration justice and there are at least 1.2 million people in Canada on temporary work, study or refugee claimant permits issued in Canada each year.
“Most migrants in low-waged work do not have access to permanent residency so eventually they are forced to either leave Canada or stay in the country undocumented. Migrant farm workers recently testified that these temporary migration schemes are “systematic slavery,”” Gomez said. “Many are unable to return to sending countries because of war, discrimination, lack of economic opportunities or because they have built relationships in Canada.”
Statistics provided by NOII-HFX indicate that today, there are over 500,000 undocumented people in the country, and as a result there are at least 1.7 million migrants.
“One-in-23 residents in Canada do not have equal rights,” Gomez said. “Lack of permanent resident status makes it difficult, and often impossible, for migrants to speak up for their rights at work or access services, including those they may be eligible for, because of a well-founded fear of reprisals, termination, eviction and deportation.”
She suggested a comprehensive regularization; a program that includes all 500,000 undocumented people; will address a historic wrong, improve working conditions by giving migrants the power to protects themselves, guarantee public health and add at least $1.1 billion to the public purse per year through contributions by employers who currently don’t pay taxes.